Today is Tuesday; 29th of the Iranian month of Tir 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 14th of the Islamic month of Shawwal 1437 lunar hijri, and July 19, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1353 lunar years ago, on this day in 84 AH, the 5^th caliph of the usurper Omayyad regime, Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan, died in Damascus at the age of 61 after a reign of 20 tyrannical years during which among a spate of crimes against Islam and humanity, he ordered his Godless general, Hajjaj bin Yusuf, to defile the sanctity of the holy Ka’ba with fire and brimstone in order to kill the rival caliph, Abdullah Ibn Zubayr. Born in Mecca to the despicable Marwan, who along with his pagan father Hakam, was expelled by Prophet for ridiculing Islam, he grew up in Medina, where his father as the cousin and son-in-law of caliph Othman Ibn Affan manipulated all state affairs and was the actual cause of the latter’s murder. When Mu’awiyyah Ibn Abu Sufyan seized the caliphate from Imam Hasan Mujtaba (AS), the elder grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), Marwan was appointed governor of Medina, and years later in 63 AH, along with his son Abdul-Malik, was lucky to be allowed to go alive to Syria on the seizure of Arabia by Abdullah ibn Zubayr. In 64 AH he found himself propelled to the truncated caliphate in those tumultuous years following the death of the tyrant Yazid, abdication of the latter’s son Mu’awiyyah II, and his own father Marwan’s surprising rise as caliph and death in the harem nine months later. Abdul-Malik cast aside the holy Qur’an with the words “It is now separation between me and you”. He faced an uncertain future with the Omayyad caliphate shrunken to Damascus and its environs as Mokhtar Ibn Abu Obaidah, the Avenger of the Martyrs of Karbala, was all set to wipe out the Omayyads with his string of victories against the killers of the Prophet’s younger grandson, Imam Husain (AS). At this crucial juncture, Abdullah Ibn Zubayr blundered by refusing to join forces with Mokhtar and instead sent his brother to attack and kill the latter, thereby giving breathing space to Abdul-Malik and in fact allowing him to regroup and attack the divided armies of Iraq and Hijaz. What followed was revival of Omayyad supremacy and suppression of true Muslims, especially the Prophet’s progeny and their followers, while boundaries of the realm continued to rapidly expand in both the east and the west – in Central Asia and North Africa. Abdul-Malik initiated brazenly racist and chauvinistic polices against the letter and spirit of Islam that made Arabs (especially Omayyad supporters) the dominant class of the empire, hand-in-hand with rabid Arabization that deprived Syrians, Egyptians, and North Africans of their native languages and rich cultural heritage. In the eastern parts of the empire, however, these apartheid policies failed to erode the Persian language and culture of the Iranians and other Muslim peoples, who in accordance with the message of the holy Qur'an, mastered Arabic language, literature and grammar, as well as hadith and Islamic sciences, while preserving for posterity the positive aspects of the legacies of the past.

1305 solar years ago, on this day in 711 AD, the Muslim forces, led by Tareq Ibn Ziyad won a decisive victory in the Battle of Guadalete by completely routing the Visigoth Christian army of King Roderick and thereby rapidly conquering much of southern Spain. Soon all of Spain and Portugal were liberated by the Muslims, who subsequently crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into France. Tareq had earlier crossed the Mediterranean from the northwestern African coast and landed on the island known ever since in his name as Gibraltar (corruption of the Arabic "Jabal at-Tareq" – Rock or Mount of Tareq). He was governor of Tangiers under Musa Ibn Nusayr, the conqueror and Emir of the Province of Ifriqiya (western Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco).Tareq was made governor of Spain by Musa, but was called back to Damascus by the jealous Omayyad caliph, Walid I, who also relieved Musa of the overall charge of northwest Africa, Spain and the islands off the coast of France. There are three different accounts of the origins of Tareq given by Arab historians – he was a Persian from Hamadan; he was an Arab of the Sadf tribe; he was a Berber from North Africa. Musa Ibn Nusayr is also said to be the son of an Iranian Christian, according to the historian Tabari; while others say he belonged to the Lakhmid Arab clan who were Sassanid clients.

1206 solar years ago, on this day in 810 AD, the famous Iranian Sunni Muslim compiler of hadith, Mohammad bin Ismail bin Ibrahim bin Bardizbah bin Bazzabeh Bukhari, was born in the Iranian city of Bukhara in what is now Uzbekistan, in a family which before conversion to Islam was either Zoroastrian or Jewish. He started collecting hadith from anyone who could relate. In his late teens, along with his brother and mother, he travelled to Mecca for pilgrimage. After visiting the centres of learning, exchanging information on hadith from over 1,000 persons, and recording more than 600,000 narrations, he returned to his hometown after a 16-year absence. Here he compiled his "al-Jame' as-Sahih", which is revered as "Sahih Bukhari" by Sunni Muslims, and contains 7,275 hadith selected as per his inclination. Although he has acknowledged some of the unparalleled merits of the Ahl al-Bayt, he did not visit the rightful heirs of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) or met their disciples for precise information on authentic hadith. It is claimed that it was fear of the wrath of the Abbasid regime that made him omit any hadith related from such an outstanding authority as the Prophet's 6th Infallible Heir, Imam Ja'far Sadeq (AS), but he felt no inhibitions to include in his so-called "Sahih" narrations from dubious persons – even avowed enemies of the Prophet's Household. In 250 AH he settled in Naishapur in Khorasan, following his expulsion from Bukhara for issuing a weird fatwa against the letter and spirit of the shari'ah that persons drinking the milk of the same cow, goat or donkey, are foster siblings and hence ineligible for marriage with each other. He died at the age of 62 while on a visit to Khartank, a village near Samarqand.

1018 solar years ago, on this day in 998 AD, the Byzantine army was defeated in the Battle of Apamea in northwestern Syria by the Fatemid Ismaili Shi’a Muslim caliphate of Egypt-Syria, and the leading Greek general, Damian Dalassenos was killed. The battle was part of a series of military confrontations between the two powers over control of northern Syria and the Hamdanid Shi’a Muslim Emirate of Aleppo. Dalassenos, had been besieging Apamea, until the arrival of the Fatimed relief army from Damascus, under Jaysh ibn Samsama. The killing of Dalassenos by a Kurdish soldier threw the Byzantine army into panic. The fleeing Byzantines were pursued, with much loss of life, by the Fatemid troops. This defeat forced the Byzantine emperor Basil II to personally take the field the next year, but he was also unsuccessful, and in 1001 he concluded a ten-year truce with the Fatemids.

864 lunar years ago, on this day in 573 AH, the well-known Iranian Imami theologian, jurisprudent, hadith scholar, and exegete of the Holy Qur’an, Qotb od-Din Rawandi, passed away and was laid to rest in the courtyard of the holy mausoleum of Hazrat Ma’souma (peace upon her), the daughter of Imam Musa Kazem (AS), the 7^th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (blessings of God upon him and his progeny). He was from Rawand near Kashan and spent several years acquiring knowledge under the prominent Islamic scholars of his day. He has left behind 80 compilations, including an exegesis of the Holy Qur'an, and exegesis of the Nahj al-Balagha and several other books including “Risalat al-Fuqaha”, and “Ayaat al-Ahkaam”.

152 solar years ago, on this day in 1864 AD, in the Third Battle of Nanking, the Qing Dynasty of China finally defeated the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom set up in 1851 in southeastern China by the self-proclaimed Christian rebel, Hong Xiuquan, who claimed to be the ‘second son’ of god and younger brother of Prophet Jesus (PuH). The Chinese government was supported by the British and French forces, who extracted concessions from the Qing Dynasty for their aid.

123 solar years ago, on this day in 1893 AD, the Russian poet, Vladimir Mayakovsky, was born. His poems served the communist revolution of the Soviet Union in the year 1917 as he believed that literature should be based on the language of masses of people and should focus on their hardships. This type of poetry became popularly known as journalistic poems. He died in 1930.

122 solar years ago, on this day in 1894 AD, Sir Khwaja Nazem od-Din, one of the notable Bengali Founding Fathers of Pakistan was born in Dhaka in what is now Bangladesh, into the family of the Nawabs of Dhaka of Kashmiri origin. He was a product of Aligarh Muslim University and Cambridge University of Britain, and on his return to undivided India joined the Muslim League. On the birth of Pakistan, he became a career statesman from what was then East Pakistan. Following the death of Governor-General Mohammad Ali Jinnah, he served as the second Governor-General of Pakistan from 1948 until the assassination of Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan in 1951. Nazem od-Din now became the Second Prime Minister of Pakistan and the first Bengali premier of that still undivided country. His government lasted only two years. On April 17, 1953, he was dismissed and conceded his defeat in the 1954 general elections to another Bengali statesman Mohammad Ali Bogra, who now became the Prime Minister of Pakistan. After a long illness, Nazem od-Din died in 1964 at the age of 70; was given a state funeral and buried in his hometown of Dhaka.

79 solar years ago, on this day in 1937 AD, George Safford Parker, the American inventor of the fountain pen “Parker’, died at the age of 73. He began in a teaching career which introduced him to the unreliability of existing fountain pens used by his students. Through selling and repairing them, he learned of their construction. He ceased teaching in 1888 to experiment with his own design. On 8 March 1892, he founded the Parker Pen Company, whose products became famous worldwide.

62 solar years ago, on this day in 1954 AD, the renowned Islamic scholar and literary figure of Iraq, Ayatollah Mohammad Hussain Kashef al-Gheta, passed away. Born in a virtuous academic family in the holy city of Najaf, he learned preliminary Islamic sciences at a young age and soon attained high scholarly status by attending the classes of prominent ulema, such as Akhound Khorasani. Ayatollah Kashef al-Gheta groomed many students and wrote several books. He also visited a number of Muslim states to promote Islamic teachings, delivering memorable speeches at the universities and scientific centers of Iran, Egypt, and Palestine. He considered presence of Muslims in political affairs as a must, and played a vital role in the Islamic movement of the Iraqi people against the British, who exiled him to Iran after crushing the 1920 revolution and martyring Ayatollah Mirza Mohammad Taqi Shirazi. Among his books, mention can be made of a diwan of poems and the book “as-Siyasat al-Husainiyyah” on the philosophy behind the epoch-making uprising of the Martyr of Karbala, Imam Husain (AS), the younger grandson of Prophet Mohammad (blessings of God upon him and his progeny).

37 solar years ago, on this day in 1979 AD, the revolution of the people of Nicaragua triumphed against the US-backed repressive regime of Anastasio Somoza Garcia, who fled the country on the collapse of his 12-year dictatorial rule that had led to the killing of 40,000 people and the homelessness of 200,000 others. The US, instead of respecting the will of the Nicaraguan people and the Sandinistas – as the revolutionaries were known – funded anti-revolutionary elements to cause subversion and terrorize the masses, but eventually failed. Nicaragua covers an area of 130700 square km, and its capital is Managua. It is situated in Central America and has coastlines on both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, sharing borders with Honduras and Costa Rica.

14 solar years ago, on this day in 2002 AD, hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets of the capital Tehran condemning US President George Bush for his crimes against humanity and his wild accusations against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Similar massive rallies were staged in other cities and towns of Iran. Vociferous chants of “Down with the US” and “Death to Bush” rent the air of Iran.

5 solar years ago, on this day in 2011 AD, Iran shot down an unmanned US spy plane that was trying to gather information on the underground Fordo uranium enrichment site.

AS/ME